


Once a Jedi Master

by starr234



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker is actually an ok dad, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Gen, Luke Skywalker has a bad couple of years actually, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, luke skywalker has a bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 15:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13034247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starr234/pseuds/starr234
Summary: I rewrote the Force ghost scene from TLJ with the character I actually wanted to see Luke talk to, mostly as an exercise in making myself feel a little better about Luke's character arc.





	Once a Jedi Master

Luke Skywalker, once a Jedi Master and now nobody, marched steadily towards the tree and the ancient Jedi texts within.

It was time. It had been time for ages, but he’d been too tired to anything before. But now, with everything coming to a head faster than he could comprehend – the dark, the light, Rey From Nowhere, his nephew – it was time to end this once and for all. To leave the Jedi to the past, where they belonged. To leave himself to the past, and let the past die.

He flicked his wrist and the torch ignited.

A voice from behind him stopped him in his tracks. “Keep a safe distance after the fire starts. That tree is overflowing with energy. She’ll go sky high once the flames hit her.”

Luke spun around. A man stood a few steps down the path, roughly his age, with a careworn face and dark blonde hair streaked with grey – but tidier than Luke’s own – brushing the collar of his Jedi robes. The man – apparition, really, bathed in the blue glow of the Force as he was – shrugged apologetically. “Speaking from experience, fire is not a pleasant way to go.”

Luke stepped closer, eyes narrowing in suspicion. The face was almost familiar, although he was sure he’d never seen it before. But the eyes – 

He’d only looked on them once, but he would never forget those eyes.

“Father?”

Anakin Skywalker smiled, still looking apologetic, and nodded.

The torch dropped from Luke’s hand. The flame sputtered out as it bounced down the pathway and right through Anakin, who watched it pass through him with far too much good humor for Luke’s taste.

In those first few years after the second Death Star, when they’d beaten back the Empire and rebuilt the Republic system by system, he’d longed for the chance to speak to his father again. People were looking to him as a Jedi hero and he’d had _no_ idea what he was doing – still didn’t, really. He’d needed guidance and, as an orphan who’d had his father back for mere minutes before losing him again, Luke had wanted that guidance to come from his father. He wanted to believe that they were still connected, that he wasn’t _really_ gone. That nobody you loved was ever really gone. 

And then later, as he’d sensed the darkness in Ben steadily rising, he’d so badly needed to talk to someone who had been through it, someone who had once been a boy struggling with unimaginable powers and uncontrollable anger and had been failed by the people who were supposed to protect him. He didn’t understand what he was doing wrong or how to help the child Leia had entrusted to him when the boy already seemed so hopelessly lost.

But his father had never come. And now he was here and all of Luke’s forgotten dreams from his youth were coming true, and what was the point? It was too late for his father to help him, too late for either of them to make any sort of a difference.

“What do you want, Father?”

“First, to stop you from dying in a massive explosion.”

“You’re not here to stop me from destroying the texts?”

Anakin smirked. “As you may have noticed, I was not particularly _good_ at being a Jedi. Those books have no value to you or to me. If you wish to destroy them, do so. All I ask is that you do it safely.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine.” He started towards his father and the torch lying behind him.

“On second thought,” Anakin said, almost to himself. He waved a hand absentmindedly towards the tree—

\--and a bolt of lightning arced from the sky directly into its branches.

As far away as he was, the explosion was still strong enough to knock Luke off his feet. He lay on his back for a moment, blinking up at the cloudless sky, then rolled onto an elbow and looked up at his father. “I guess you weren’t kidding about the tree going sky high.”

Anakin settled onto a boulder next to where Luke lay on the stone pathway. “Indeed not.”

Luke pushed himself up to lean against the boulder with a groan. “So, is that it? You didn’t come here just to talk about fire safety, did you?”

“I thought,” Anakin said after a pause, “circumstances as they are, that you might need your father.”

Luke laughed harshly. “Is that what you thought? It’s been _thirty years_. What about all the _other_ times I needed you?”

Anakin sighed, and for a split-second Luke was struck with how strange it must have been for his father to be able to _breathe_ (and wondered simultaneously if Anakin was really breathing at all, if he even had a corporeal form or if this was just how Luke was seeing him in this moment). “It is more difficult for me to come out of the Force into the physical world than it is for others, given my history. I have felt when you’ve needed me and I wanted to come every time, but was never able to. But rest assured, my son, I have been watching you since I last laid eyes on you. And I am _very_ proud of you.”

“Why?” Luke said, his voice catching as he ran a hand through his tangled mop of hair. “What could you possibly be proud of? All I’ve done is fail.”

“So did I, Luke. I failed you, and I failed your sister, and I failed your mother. And I failed myself. You gave me the strength to do what I could to make things right. I want to do the same for you, if I can.”

“But it’s too late.” Luke shook his head, his voice hollow. “I can’t make anything right, not anymore.”

“It’s never too late. All you can do is try. _That_ is what always made me so proud. No matter what trials you faced, you never stopped trying and you never lost faith. Until now.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Luke asked. He felt shallow, like he would soon drift off into the Force until there was nothing left of him. “What else is left to have faith in?”

Anakin stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back onto his elbows. “You were right, you know.”

Luke blinked at the sudden change in subject. “When?”

“When you told that girl – Rey From Nowhere – that the light and the energy don’t belong to the Jedi. You were right. That light belongs to all of us. It belonged to me even when I was shrouded in darkness, and it belongs to you even now.” He sat up, leaned forward and placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder. A shudder passed through Luke at the contact. His father’s hand had no weight, but he could feel the touch – physically and psychically – all the same. “You have borne the burden of your past alone for so long, Luke. You don’t need to. Let the light back in. Let it lift you up and bear you back to those who love you.”

Luke bowed his head and closed his eyes, swallowing back the shame welling up in him. “How can I go back? How can I face Leia after what I did to her son?”

“Her son made his own choices, just as I did. Understand your place in those choices, but never take responsibility for his actions. That said, you face Leia as you always have – as her brother. She will forgive you, just as you forgave me.”

“And then? What then?”

“Then you move forward, learn from your past and start again. It’s what I would have done, if I’d had the chance.”

Luke reached up and put his hand on his shoulder, over his father’s. “I wish you’d had the chance.”

He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder, for all that the hand resting there wasn’t real. “I would have liked to have been there for you, instead of watching from afar. I have many regrets, but that is chief among them.”

“If I stay here,” Luke said, choosing his words carefully. “I think I won’t be _here_ much longer. The Force is so strong in this place, I can feel myself becoming porous. Soon, it’s going to be so easy to just let go.” He took a deep breath, closing his eyes against the sudden sting of tears. “We could be together then, like you always wanted us to be.”

His father took his hand from Luke’s shoulder, stepped off the boulder and around Luke to kneel in front of him. He took hold of Luke’s shoulders and looked at him with kind eyes. “When you come through, I will be waiting for you. I have always been, and I always will be. But Luke, my son, you cannot leave your sister to carry on alone. She has lost her son and her husband and she thinks you lost as well. She needs you, Luke. She needs your light.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know,” his father said. He smiled, gently. “But you don’t need to be. The Force will be there for you, if you’ll let it.”

“But—”

“Close your eyes, Luke.”

Luke did so, feeling like a novice. Maybe, despite all the years behind him, he _was_ still a novice.

“Reach out with your feelings. And breathe. Just reach out, and breathe.”

And for the first time in years, Luke did. His chest hitched with a sob as the Force flooded back into him. It was filled with his past deeds and his regrets and pain and fears, but as he focused on his breath and the steady presence of his father in front of him, and the whisper soft presence of his sister across the galaxy, all of the hurt melted away and the Force sang to him, clean and bright.

It sang to welcome him home.

“Father,” he whispered.

“I am so proud of you, my son.” His father’s voice sounded distant. “Never forget that.”

Luke opened his eyes. His father was gone, but his warm glow was still there inside Luke – and Leia was getting brighter by the second. He couldn’t ignore that anymore, even if he’d wanted to.

Luke Skywalker, once a Jedi Master and now a brother on his way back home, stood and marched steadily towards the beach. If the Force was with him, he could repair whatever damage the water had done to his submerged x-wing and get out of here. And if it wasn’t, he’d have to call Chewie back to pick him up. Either way, it was time to go.

_Hang on, Leia_ , he sent. _I’m coming._


End file.
